How are we going to do this?
I have done a little poking around and have discovered a few things regarding our trip to Victoria. Originally it seemed like a good idea to fly to Seattle and then take the ferry to Victoria. However after checking some ferry prices and schedules we do not come out far ahead when time is factored in.
Option 1: Seattle/Ferry Combo
- Fly to Seattle: $313
- Ferry to Victoria: $77 one way, $139 round trip
- Potential added cost of rooms in Seattle, see issues.
Option 1 issues
- If we arrive in Seattle before 2:00pm we can catch the 3:15pm ferry and arrive in Victoria at 6:00pm. I don't think I can do this because I don't want to miss three days of work.
- If we miss that ferry (eg. Arrive when we can't catch it) we will have to spend the night in Seattle. This means we would not be in Victoria until 10:30am on Saturday (day of the reception) and we will have to catch a 7:30am ferry the morning after having a little fun ;) in Seattle. Obviously we will have to rent rooms and you can safely bet they are more expensive than rooms in Victoria.
- Time and hassle, this is kind of a biggie as we will be spending a total of 6 hours on ferries (round trip) and enjoy lugging our bags between three hotels.
Option 2: Fly directly to Victoria
- Fly to Victoria: $614
Option 2 issues
- Slightly more expensive, not sure how much though as there is a lot of variable cost here.
- Save a lot of time and hassle.
- Don't get to see Seattle
Well what do you guys think? Unless there are any other ways of getting to Victoria from Seattle it seems these are our options.
posted by Ben Ferreira at 8:12 PM
20 Comments:
Well, I for one have a friend I would like to see in Seattle. Gabe, I remember you mentioning that you had people you wanted to visit in Seattle as well. So if you guys wanted we could fly into Seattle on Thursday or something and then catch the Friday afternoon ferry and meet Ben in Victoria Friday night. The downside to this plan of course is that we'd have to spend the night in Seattle and make sure we caught the ferry ontime to get back to Seattle to fly home.
Anyway, Gabe - do you have any input on this? I probably would just fly directly into Victoria if no one else wanted to fly into Seattle.
4/21/2006 9:13 PM
You could fly to Vancouver and take a bus across to Victoria? Are you guys renting a car? If you are then you could rent one in Vancouver. But it sounds like we guys want to see Seattle so I dunno....
4/22/2006 2:36 AM
They run busses from Vancouver to Victoria? Isn't there some water in the way? :)
4/22/2006 2:42 AM
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/ferries/info_desk/fares/index.cfm?fareroute_id=8585&route_abbrev=ana-sj
There are a number of different ferries and habour planes as well, er float planes, I hear that they are not too expensive.
hmm wait a sec i posted some stuff on this a while back...
4/22/2006 2:45 AM
well you can take the bus onto the ferry ;)
4/22/2006 2:45 AM
I just checked tickets to Vancouver and it's around $520. In that case we'd be better off going straight to Victoria. Hmmm decisions decisions...
4/22/2006 2:46 AM
Wow bus on the ferry, that's a novel idea. Lol I guess it's no different from putting a train on the ferry. Lol ask Gabe about that one...
4/22/2006 2:47 AM
They are HUGE 300 car and semi truck ferries :P
4/22/2006 2:48 AM
I have found that some of the cheaper ways to get from CO to BC are:
A. Fly from DEN-SEA then take the quick shuttle (a cruise passenger bus) up into Vancouver, then a city bus to the ferry, and someone picks me up onthe other side. This way works well if you don't carry a huge amount of luggage.
B. Greyhound...cheap and creepy
C. Random cheap flights from DEN-YVR to YYJ (Victoria) is usually like an extra $200-300 more well the ferry and and nice bus that takes you from YVR to(and ferry) Victoria is about $40-50
D. I don't normally take the Seattle ferries, because I haven't found a way other then a taxi to get from SEA to the ferries.
there are several different ones, the Victoria Clipper, Victoria Express, Washington State Ferries and Blackball Transport.
Here are some websites:
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/ferries/visitors_center/index.cfm?fuseaction=travel_victoria
http://www.victoriaclipper.com/victoria_clipper_ferry_service
http://www.bcferries.com/
https://www.quickshuttle.com/index.htm
There are three main routes (via ferry) to get from the Vancouver Area to the Island (we take the first one the most)
1)Vancouver - Victoria (Tsawwassen-Swartz Bay)
Crossing Time: 1 hour 35 minutes
Distance: 24 nautical miles
2)Vancouver - Nanaimo (Tsawwassen-Duke Point)
Crossing Time: 2 hours
Distance: 38 nautical miles
3)West Van - Nanaimo (Horseshoe Bay-Departure Bay)
Crossing Time: 1 hour 35 minutes
Distance: 30 nautical miles
About Bus Service:
http://www.bcferries.com/travel_planning/frequently_asked_questions.html#bus
Group Fares on bc ferries:
Discount rates are available for groups of 15 or more, travelling together, as walk-on passengers or in one vehicle. Book at least 7 days in advance.
Also I've heard that Airlines give Wedding discounts...Apparently you tell them you'd like a discount password for your wedding guests, and they give 10% off!! lol Not much but some is better then nothing :D (We have not talked to any airlines as of yet..)
10/30/2005 4:19 AM
4/22/2006 2:48 AM
oh yeah what airline are you guys thinging of flying? I can call and ask for a a wedding discount :)
4/22/2006 2:50 AM
Doesn't really matter to me. I was thinking either Frontier (the cheapest) or Northwest (I'm building frequent flier miles, slightly more expensive). But I'm open so it doesn't matter which one(s) you pick.
4/22/2006 2:52 AM
http://www.city.victoria.bc.ca/
visitors/about_trans.shtml
this is a cool web site :)
4/22/2006 2:53 AM
It doesn't matter to me either I think I could call both places...I have no idea how it works...
4/22/2006 2:54 AM
issues... i expected this. There is no easy way around it. let us know how we can help...
im assuming whatever airport you might fly into you'd rent a car... (theres a surcharge if you're under 25) which could cut back on taxi costs, like from the airport to the ferry, and from the ferry to some place in victoria.
4/22/2006 3:00 AM
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
4/22/2006 3:04 AM
AH-HA!!! What abotu flying to Bellingham (BLI)?
can you guys see the links I don't know how to get them to work...
http://www.aferry.to/timetable/AFRYtimetableAFFT.asp?Route=SANJBEVI&Period=08&Year=2006&Action=showtable
http://www.aferry.to/timetable/
AFRYtimetableAFFT.asp?Route=SANJBEVI
&Period=08&Year=2006&Action=showtable
4/22/2006 3:17 AM
$438 Roundtripavg/person
8:05 am Depart Denver (DEN)
Arrive Bellingham (BLI) 12:10 pm Thu 10-Aug
Duration: 5hr 5mn
Alaska Airlines Alaska Airlines 523 / Alaska Airlines 2018 operated by Horizon Air2018
Connect in Seattle (SEA)
I found it at www.expedia.com
4/22/2006 3:18 AM
http://maps.google.com/maps?oi=map&q=Bellingham,+WA
do have msn? or yahoo? or some type of im...lol I feel silly, cuz i keep getting Ideas and posting a million of them lol
4/22/2006 3:21 AM
http://www.quickcoach.com/schedule.htm#sched_summer
okay this is *MY* favourite way to get from Seattle to my house. (I have also found it to be one of the cheapest)
I fly to Sea-Tac then take the quickshuttle bus up to Vancouver (it is a nice large bus and it will be have people (it's also never been completely filled when I took it) wanting to take a cruise so older quiet people)
The only thing is...I take it striaght to the Vancouver airport and then take a city bus from there to the ferry (small, full and not a lot of room for heaps of huge suitcases...but UBER cheap like Two dollars and something Canadian lol so that's like $0.10 American ;)
But there is another option, that is taking ANOTHER bus a big nice bus from the vancouver airport all the way into the city of Victoria for round trip $78 http://www.pacificcoach.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=schedule.airport
Okay well I have to go write a ten page email to Joel's parents explaining about the ferries and how to get here, lol
We are both really beyond happy and excited that any of you would want to or even be able to come all that way to see us, it really means a lot to us, more then you know :)
4/22/2006 2:55 PM
I'm with Gabe here...I will likely not look at ticket prices until after school. I hope to have a job by then, but who knows?
Also, I'm quite undecided about SEA vs. BC. I currently have a friend in SEA as well, though he may be moving back out to DEN soon. Either way, it'd be lovely to see both cities, but this may come at a slight expense, and I'm not sure I'll be able to take work off since I don't yet have work!
Let's sit down and talk about all this after school.
4/22/2006 8:34 PM
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